


I Told You So

by Zhie



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bunniverse, M/M, Spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 20:53:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10499268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhie/pseuds/Zhie
Summary: Elves and spiders.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is because of a question posed to me by erestorsr0bes about otps and who kills spiders, and this inspired me to write this because my initial answer was in the form of an answer, and it’s more fun to write answers in the form of a fic with Glorfindel, Erestor, and some spiders. Surprisingly fluffy for a fic with a giant spider in it.

Glorfindel descended into the kitchen. It was empty, and he walked through and stepped down into the den to find Erestor on the sofa with paperwork surrounding him. There was also a small table beside the couch that held a half-eaten peach muffin and two glasses of water, one empty and one full. Erestor waved and was about to greet him, but the motion with his hand caused him to slice his pinky open on a sheet of paper. “Oh, dammit,” he hissed as he watched the blood well up to see how long the cut was.

“Sorry.” Glorfindel took two steps forward with the intent of kissing the injury he now felt responsible for. As he reached out to take Erestor’s hand and leaned down, something behind Erestor caught his eye. It was on the wall, very tiny, and it twitched, and he stood back almost immediately. “What is that doing in here?” he demanded as he pointed at the offending creature.

Erestor turned his head and sought out whatever it was that unsettled Glorfindel. When he noticed the arachnid dangling from a thin, translucent thread that was probably attached to the ceiling, he moved some papers to stack them and looked back to Glorfindel. “Would you like me to ask him?”

“No, I would like you to get rid of him,” answered Glorfindel. “Preferably with your shoe.”

“He is perfectly harmless. I can take him outside.” Erestor pressed his thumb against the tiny cut on his finger and moved some letter from his lap. He was about to reach out and cup the spider in his hand when Glorfindel called out.

 

“Wait!”

“What now?” Erestor tried to keep one eye on Glorfindel, and another on the spider, who was now lowering himself down to the floor.

“What if he is poisonous? He might bite you. You should wear gloves. Or use a cup. No, wait! No cups, he might lay eggs in it.”

Erestor relaxed on the sofa again as he lost sight of the spider and focused his attention on Glorfindel. “He is a male spider, so you have no eggs to worry about.”

“You never know.” Glorfindel looked past Erestor, and then stumbled back with wide eyes. “Where did he go?”

Erestor shrugged and continued to clean up his mess of correspondence. “He probably heard what you suggested about the shoe and went into hiding.”

Glorfindel’s next sentence came out as a whine that would have made someone who was only listening think that there was a terrified child in the room. “Erestor, I hate spiders! How could you lose him?” It was followed by a whimper.

A very adorable whimper, decided Erestor, considering it was coming from an imposing warrior known to charge at the forefront of most battles. He should feel bad about his next offering to their conversation – he did feel bad – but listening to Glorfindel when he was frightened was actually charming. “Technically, we have not lost him. He is most certainly somewhere in this room.”

“Erestor! Stop teasing me!” Glorfindel was frozen in place, his gaze darting from the floor to the wall to the sofa, in case the spider should launch an attack on his mate. “What if this was a… oh, you must be afraid of something!”

“Oh, sweetheart, come he—wait, no, stay right there.” Erestor stood up and closed the distance between them. He embraced Glorfindel and held him firmly as he stroked his hair and then tucked his head under his chin. “The spider is probably far more afraid of you than you are of him.”

“Or, he is going to get his bigger, meaner friends to come after us. Or, just a whole army of little spiders. You know, they might just organize like the ones in Mirkwood used to and then what are we going to do?”

Erestor began to formulate a logical explanation to Glorfindel’s fears, but he realized that an illogical fear was best countered with an illogical explanation. “Have you ever considered that not all spiders speak the same language? Why, think about it. Not even all Elves speak the same language. You know as well as I do that some of the Sindar who have come here have been unable to communicate with some of the Vanyar who have lived here forever. Spiders are probably the same way. Plus, they do not have unlimited time to learn languages, so they stand an even lesser chance of creating spider armies, or alliances with bigger spiders. If anything, maybe if I can catch this one and let him go, he will just go off and tell all of his friends not to come here because unlike most of the houses we have no basement and are therefore horrible hosts, unable to offer a buffet of things that creep in the dark for them to eat.”

Perhaps a child would have been placated. Glorfindel leaned back, but did not push Erestor completely away. “You think I am silly.”

“I think you are adorably silly,” admitted Erestor. “I think you know well that you have nothing to fear from a spider.”

Glorfindel gave Erestor a hard look. “You never know.”

“I will admit, there is always a chance. However, if there is a spider uprising, I am doubtful that they will come specifically for us. Moreover, if they did, I would use more than my shoe against them, as would you. Until then, I am going to continue to catch and release anything that wanders in. For all you know, he was sleeping in a head of lettuce we brought in yesterday for supper and has spent the entire night trying to find an open window.” Erestor kissed the top of Glorfindel’s head. “Now, I just saw him crawl up the leg of the table, so-” He bit his lip as Glorfindel scurried several paces out of the range of the table. Erestor would have preferred to fawn over Glorfindel, but he did not want to take the chance he would lose track of the spider again. “Let me just take this fellow outside and we will be done with it.”

Erestor crouched down and located the spider lazily making his way across the bottom of the table. With a little coaxing, the creature was crawling across his hand, exploring the almost fully healed slice on his little finger. “I will be right back,” said Erestor as he strolled to the kitchen and opened the front door.

He did not get outside before he shut it again. “Fin?”

“Is it outside?” called out Glorfindel.

Erestor looked down at the spider trying to crawl out of his palm. He opened the door again and hastily turned his hand over and shook his arm. The spider jumped onto the railing of the porch and Erestor slammed the door shut again.

Glorfindel peeked into the kitchen. “Is it gone?”

Erestor chose his next words carefully. “Yes. It is. With the giant one trying to get into the barn.”

“The what?!”

“I will allow you to say ‘I told you so’ as many times as you like after you go and get my bow,” offered Erestor as he pushed back the curtain to look out the window in the door.

“How big?” asked Glorfindel as he cautiously came up behind Erestor.

“And I need arrows,” added Erestor as an afterthought. “I would use my shoe, but as you can see, that would be ineffective.”

Glorfindel decided not to look out the window before he retrieved the requested weaponry. He returned to find Erestor still looking out the window. “What is it doing?” he asked as he handed the bow out to Erestor.

“I think it was actually trying to figure out how to open the doors.” Erestor shuddered as he opened the door once more and stepped quietly out onto the porch. “I hate having to kill things,” he murmured under his breath as he accepted an arrow held by Glorfindel. Erestor lifted the bow and took aim. “Poor thing. Probably just hungry.”

“For my horse,” whispered Glorfindel uneasily. “How are those things here in Valinor?”

“They were here in Valinor before they were in Middle-earth. Or at least, around the same time.” Erestor aimed again and pulled the bow taut. “I wonder if it has a family.” He lowered the bow again.

“Oh, Erestor, just shoot the damned thing already!” Glorfindel immediately regretted his outburst, for the spider turned its attention onto the pair of Elves on the porch, reared up, and charged at them. Now it was Erestor’s turn to freeze in place, and Glorfindel tore the bow away from him in an instant. The arrow was plucked from Erestor, nocked, and released in one fluid motion. The giant spider rolled off to the side, legs curling in as the body twitched and then went limp. “You can clean it up,” he stated as he took Erestor’s bow back into the house.

Glorfindel reappeared a few minutes later to find Erestor tapping his foot against the corpse of the spider. “Forgot to tell me you told me so?” wondered Erestor as Glorfindel purposefully approached him.

“No.” Glorfindel managed to get close enough to Erestor while still keeping his distance. He reached out for Erestor’s hand, located the paper cut from earlier, and gave it a tiny kiss. Glorfindel turned to see the tiny spider on the railing nearby. “Now shoo, unless you want to be next!” he scolded.

“Fin, he is a spider. He cannot-“ Erestor closed his mouth as he watched the spider hurry along the railing and leap off, theoretically on his journey as far away from their cottage as possible. “Maybe you should just yell at any spiders we find in the house in the future,” Erestor suggested as Glorfindel walked back inside.

Glorfindel stepped back out. “There will be no more in the future. If I find more in the future, I am just going to kill them on sight.”

“Oh, Fin. They are practically harmless.”

Glorfindel put his hands on his hips and seemed to have a very well-thought reply for him, but his eyes suddenly widened and he shouted, “Erestor, behind you!”

“Behind- what the fuck?!” Erestor jerked his leg as he felt a sudden pain in his calf. He looked down to see that the dead spider was only a half-dead spider. “You little bastard!” Erestor yanked the arrow out of the spider and used it to stab the offensive creature over and over until it finally let go of his leg and fell limp to the ground again. He plunged the arrow in a few more times and twisted it for good measure. “Fucking spiders,” he spat as he kicked the giant arachnid.

Glorfindel cleared his throat as Erestor limped his way up to the house. “I hear they are mostly harmless.”

“Not those,” snapped Erestor. “Those need to be killed. The whole lot of them!”

With a slight smirk, Glorfindel knelt down and pushed up the bottom of Erestor’s robe to look at the elder’s second injury of the day. “It looks like it only throttled you. No blood drawn.” He leaned in and gently kissed the darkest of the marks before he lowered the robe again. He stood up and kissed Erestor properly. “My hero,” he whispered. “How can I ever repay you for such bravery?”

“Make me breakfast?” suggested Erestor. 

“I thought you had a muffin,” recalled Glorfindel as they entered the house together.

“I stopped eating it after that spider ran across it earlier,” admitted Erestor as he shut the door.


End file.
